Avowed is arguably one of the most interesting upcoming titles within the gaming industry, with the open-world fantasy RPG from Obsidian Entertainment drawing attention from many of the developer's fans. The title has received a lot of hype despite the lack of information available for it, leading to a lot of speculation surrounding the game.
The fantastical setting of Avowed and its open-world nature have already seen comparisons be drawn between the title and the famous Elder Scrolls franchise, with both IPs seemingly possessing the same kind of combat and magic mechanics. With this in mind, there is one seemingly abandoned aspect of The Elder Scrolls' spellcasting that could easily be adopted by Avowed, potentially giving the game an edge over one of its main competing franchises: spellmaking.
The Spellcasting of The Elder Scrolls Oblivion
Spellcasting is a core element of the combat of The Elder Scrolls, and 2006's Oblivion smartly built upon the spell mechanics of past franchise releases in a number of ways. In particular, one of the stand-out features of Oblivion's spellcasting was the ability for the players to craft their very own spells with unique properties.
While this feature was originally introduced to the IP with 1996's Daggerfall, the spellmaking within Oblivion was more detailed than its Daggerfall and Morrowind counterparts. Spellmaking gives a much-needed level of personalization to casting within The Elder Scrolls, providing a needed level of depth to the mechanic while opening up a much larger range of strategies. Within Oblivion, spellmaking was unlocked as a part of the Mages Guild questline, with players being able to mix learned properties from spells together with a chosen area of effect, allowing for deeply powerful custom spells to be created.
Spellmaking was dropped from the franchise with 2011's Skyrim, much to the disappointment to fans who had become accustomed to the mechanic. This speaks to the opinion that Skyrim watered down a lot of the more complex mechanics of past The Elder Scrolls installments, with there being a clear desire for another RPG title to take up the mantle of more layered gameplay.
How Spellmaking Could Work in Avowed
From what little promotional material exists of Avowed, it is clear that the game is set to feature a very similar spellcasting mechanic to The Elder Scrolls. With players being able to dual-wield between traditional weapons and magic, there is clear room for spellcasting to be an intricate and popular mechanic within the game.
Spellmaking could work in the release similarly to how it has in past Elder Scrolls titles, with the ability to craft spells being one that is unlocked via its own dedicated questline and with spell properties being learned directly from other spells. This would do well to market Avowed as providing a more traditional fantasy RPG experience, in which the player is given the freedom to dictate the complexity of a title on their own terms.
Of course, Avowed would do well to stamp its own identity into such a mechanic by introducing spell properties that have not featured within TES, such as rates of fire, for example. It will be difficult for Avowed to compete with the comparisons that will be made between itself and The Elder Scrolls, but there is a clear utility in the game capitalizing on one of the rare pitfalls of Skyrim by implementing its own challenging yet rewarding spellmaking system.
Avowed is currently in development for PC and Xbox Series X/S.